North Pole’s Svalbard Global Seed Vault to Receive News Deposits

Television crews stand outside the Global Seed Vault before the opening ceremony in Longyearbyen February 26, 2008. (Reuters)
Television crews stand outside the Global Seed Vault before the opening ceremony in Longyearbyen February 26, 2008. (Reuters)
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North Pole’s Svalbard Global Seed Vault to Receive News Deposits

Television crews stand outside the Global Seed Vault before the opening ceremony in Longyearbyen February 26, 2008. (Reuters)
Television crews stand outside the Global Seed Vault before the opening ceremony in Longyearbyen February 26, 2008. (Reuters)

A vault built on an Arctic mountainside to preserve the world's crop seeds from war, disease and other catastrophes received new deposits on Monday, including one from the first organization that made a withdrawal from the facility, reported Agence France Press.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, on Spitsbergen Island halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, is only opened a few times a year to limit its seed banks' exposure to the outside world.

On Monday, gene banks from Sudan, Uganda, New Zealand, Germany and Lebanon deposited seeds, including millet, sorghum and wheat, as back-ups to their own collections.

The International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), which moved its headquarters to Beirut from Aleppo in 2012 because of the war in Syria, will deposit some 8,000 samples.

ICARDA made the first seed withdrawal from the vault in 2015 to replace a collection damaged by the war, and two further withdrawals in 2017 and 2019 to rebuild its own collections, now held in Lebanon and Morocco.

"The fact that the seed collection destroyed in Syria during the civil war has been systematically rebuilt shows that the vault functions as an insurance for current and future food supply and for local food security," said Norwegian International Development Minister Anne Beathe Tvinnereim. The vault holds over 1.1 million seed samples of nearly 6,000 plant species from 89 seed banks globally.



16 Teams Compete in ‘Mobile Legends: Bang Bang’ Women's Tournament in Riyadh

This year’s edition is the largest in the tournament’s history, featuring 16 teams. (SPA)
This year’s edition is the largest in the tournament’s history, featuring 16 teams. (SPA)
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16 Teams Compete in ‘Mobile Legends: Bang Bang’ Women's Tournament in Riyadh

This year’s edition is the largest in the tournament’s history, featuring 16 teams. (SPA)
This year’s edition is the largest in the tournament’s history, featuring 16 teams. (SPA)

The second week of the Esports World Cup 2025 kicked off in Riyadh on Tuesday featuring the “Mobile Legends: Bang Bang” Women’s Invitational (MWI). The tournament is a key event on the competition’s calendar, bringing together top global mobile gaming stars for the second consecutive year, reported the Saudi Press Agency.

Since its release in 2016, “Mobile Legends: Bang Bang” has established itself as one of the world’s leading esports titles, thanks to its widely followed international and regional tournaments. With over 110 million monthly active users, it has become one of the most popular mobile multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games globally.

This year’s edition is the largest in the tournament’s history, featuring 16 teams compared to 12 last year, with qualifiers held across 57 regions worldwide, up from 46 regions in the previous edition.

The current edition features 16 teams representing 13 regions from around the world. The participating teams are Team Vitality, ONIC Pertiwi, Natus Vincere PH, Team Liquid, Natus Vincere MY, SFU Serendipity, Falcons Vega MENA, DreamMax Girls, Rising Rage, WAOW GG Esports, Virtus.pro FE, FUT Esports, Gaimin Gladiators, Twisted Minds Orchid, Tidal Legends Gaming, and Terror Queens.

The teams will compete for a total prize pool of $500,000, with an additional $50,000 awarded to the best player. The tournament also offers 3,350 points toward the Club Championship race in the Esports World Cup 2025.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt are prominently represented by Twisted Minds Orchid and Falcons Vega MENA, both aiming for their first title in the tournament and carrying the hopes of their supporters for a historic achievement.

Twisted Minds Orchid features Saudi players “Lyrx,” “Lunar,” and “Livin,” while Falcons Vega MENA competes with an all-Egyptian lineup of “Velvet,” “Sunlight,” “Yui,” “Names,” and “Fvvn.”